Building learning & sustainable societies

The fundamental values of solidarity, equality, participation and social justice are the cornerstones of the process of building inclusive learning and sustainable societies, where people are given opportunities to develop and to cooperate as free and equal individuals.

SOLIDAR members work towards creating an inclusive learning society based on openness and democracy, where everybody is a learner and has a chance to participate in lifelong and life-wide learning opportunities. An educated and well-informed citizenry forms an indispensable part of a democratic society and is a prerequisite for active citizenship and to tackle cultural poverty. On behalf of its members, SOLIDAR advocates for ensuring that their objectives are reflected in the structure of the European Education Area as well as in all other relevant policy initiatives. This will imply promoting personal and collective emancipation;  individuals’ full civic, social, and economic participation in society and the holistic growth of all learners – to ensure that everyone achieves the maximum according to their abilities. 

SOLIDAR strives to ensure that everyone is prepared to actively participate in a fast-paced and constantly changing society, especially by means of developing skills and competences through all types of education, in a lifelong and life-wide manner, for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, for adapting to the digital revolution, and for pursuing environmental and climate justice. Our network will strive for these goals also within the Conference on the Future of Europe and similar initiatives to enhance civic engagement in Europe and ensure the involvement of CSOs in policymaking debate.  

Our work will be focused on the following areas:   

• Promote global citizenship education, democracy, intercultural learning, and media literacy. Combat all forms of misinformation and discrimination, including racism and xenophobia, and to develop a strategy which actively supports the creation of inclusive societies and workplaces.
• Recognising the added value of non-formal and informal learning (NFIL) for the attainment of competences leading to active citizenship, emancipation, and the ability to adapt to fast-paced systemic changes also in terms of labour market dynamics. Achieving the recognition of prior learning and NFIL means establishing learning pathways and validation methods that enable the transition between educational systems. To achieve this recognition to NFIL, we promote the validation of skills, competences and knowledge acquired through it.
• Making lifelong and life-wide learning a reality for all and fostering participation of people in education and learning, especially those with vulnerable socio-economic backgrounds, who are far from formal education. Achieving a just transition means also to ensure that the competences and skills of highly educated unemployed people do not deteriorate and find their place in a changing labour market. All while ensuring a learner-centred process to which all education stakeholders contribute in a holistic manner, also by promoting the whole-school approach.
• Levelling the digital playing-field by presenting policy recommendations to close the digital divide (infrastructures and skills); raising awareness in the network to secure that the digital dimension of active citizenship and the introduction of A.I. is duly addressed by education and training policies to foster inclusion and for the digital revolution to serve the people’s well-being, by being based on a human rights-approach. Promotion of the exchange and dissemination of innovative good practices from the membership. 

As stated in SOLIDAR's New Organisational Strategy, published in June 2021.